Escolar Documentos
Profissional Documentos
Cultura Documentos
No. 12-2383
ANTHONY DECIANTIS,
Petitioner, Appellant,
v.
A.T. WALL,
Respondent, Appellee.
Before
Lynch, Chief Judge,
Thompson and Kayatta, Circuit Judges.
July 1, 2013
held that the withheld information was not material under the Brady
test for materiality.
WL
(D.R.I.
Oct.
24,
2012);
DeCiantis
v.
Wall
DeCiantis has
neither
contrary
to
nor
an
unreasonable
application
of
-2-
I.
We describe the facts found by the R.I. Supreme Court,
adding other facts from the record that are consistent with these
findings.
A.
presented
at
DeCiantis's
June
1984
murder
trial.
See
v. DeCiantis
As the court
recounted:
The state's witness Louis Schiappa testified that on
December 4, 1981, he observed two other men force the
victim into a car driven by Anthony DeCiantis.
The
witness stated that he had seen DeCiantis drive the car
on prior occasions, and he identified the first two
letters on the license plate. These two letters were
identical to those on the registration of a car owned by
defendant's sister.
The next day Dennis Roche's body was discovered in a dump
in Providence.
According to Deputy Medical Examiner
Arthur Burns, Roche had died from a gunshot wound to the
trunk.
Roche had suffered a second gunshot wound,
several stab wounds, and injuries to the face and head
consistent with his having been run over by a car.
The state offered three additional witnesses, each of
whom testified about separate occasions on which
defendant had admitted to killing Roche.
Louis
Campagnone testified that approximately two months after
Roche's murder, he and defendant were in a restaurant
when DeCiantis admitted to having killed Roche, claiming
that he did it because he believed Roche to have been
responsible for the disappearance of DeCiantis' brother,
Rocco.
Robert Livingston testified that during the summer of
1982, he and defendant had a conversation in which
-3-
December 1981, DeCiantis told him that he and Silva "had killed
Dennis Roche, drove over him with a car, shot him."
According to
DeCiantis
conspiracy and bank fraud in 1982, and that charges were pending
against him for robbery, murder, first-degree arson, and obtaining
money under false pretenses.
Id.
-4-
Id.
word that I would tell the truth of . . . about any murders that I
was aware of and that is what I did and that is all I am here is to
tell the truth."
A:
Q:
A:
Q:
You expect . . .
A:
Q:
-5-
A:
Q:
A:
Q:
A:
. . .
Q:
A:
Q:
A:
See id.
counsel
also
questioned
whether
Ferle
. . .
A:
Q:
. . .
-6-
had
A:
Q:
. . .
A:
. . .
Q:
. . .
A:
I am in State Police
Id. at 559.
at 568.
-7-
Id.
1.
Prosecutor
Criminal
Leach
Identification
testified
(BCI)
that
record
Ferle's
had
been
Bureau
of
disclosed
to
DeCiantis in February 1984, before his trial, but that this record
omitted offenses with which DeCiantis had not been charged at that
time.
Id. at 563.
at
DeCiantis's
trial.
Id.
at
564.
That
supplemental answer stated that "[d]uring the course of the debriefing of William Ferle, he has indicated his involvement in the
following
criminal
activity,"
id.
(alteration
in
original)
issued by a grand jury for six of these crimes and Ferle was a
defendant in four of these cases.
Id.
Id.
Id. at 564-65.
while he could not indicate in which month Ferle admitted all the
crimes in which he had been involved, it was "very possible" that
Ferle had disclosed all these crimes by June of 1984.
Id. at 566
op. at 9.
As said, the R.I. Supreme Court determined that "evidence
of additional criminal activity on the part of Mr. Ferle" was not
material.
trial.
-9-
2.
Id. at 565
Id.
Urso further
testified that the state police had made mortgage payments for
Id. at 567.
that
in
document
dated
May
21,
Leach nonetheless
1984,
the
state
marks omitted).
II.
DeCiantis's 1998 state postconviction relief petition had
two claims: that "the State withheld information regarding the
specific promises, rewards and inducements made to witness William
Ferle," and "the State intentionally withheld an uncharged act[2]
-- the murder of Ronald McElroy -- admitted by [Mr.] Ferle prior to
trial."
As to the first
Court upheld the Superior Court's determination that there had been
no deliberate failure to disclose evidence favorable to DeCiantis,
DeCiantis III, 24 A.3d at 571-72, but rejected its conclusion that
DeCiantis was not entitled to disclosure of Ferle's uncharged acts,
id. at 572-73. Nonetheless, the court concluded that DeCiantis had
Id. at
573.
In DeCiantis's 2254 federal court petition, he asserted
that (1) "the Rhode Island Supreme Court erred in affirming the
post conviction judge's finding that the state did not deliberately
withhold exculpatory evidence from the defendant, in violation of
his Fifth Amendment rights"; and (2) "the Rhode Island Supreme
Court erred when it found that if the state's failure to disclose
exculpatory evidence was not deliberate there was no constitutional
violation because the evidence was not material."
The district
court rejected4 the first argument on the basis that the "'good
faith or bad faith of the prosecution'" in failing to disclose
favorable evidence is irrelevant under clearly established U.S.
Supreme Court law.
We agree.
III.
We review a district court's grant or denial of habeas
relief de novo, meaning that "the district court opinion, while
helpful for its reasoning, is entitled to no deference."
Healy,
453 F.3d at 25. DeCiantis repeats his argument that the state high
court decision was both contrary to and involved an unreasonable
application of clearly established U.S. Supreme Court law.5
He
(2)
A.
U.S.
Supreme
Court
has
held
that
"[u]nder
the
applied the wrong materiality standard to his claims that the state
withheld favorable evidence.
It did not.
defense,
the
different.'"
result
Kyles
of
the
proceeding
would
have
been
(quoting United States v. Bagley, 473 U.S. 667, 682 (1985) (opinion
of Blackmun, J.)).
The R.I. Supreme Court twice stated the correct standard
that evidence is material when "'there is a reasonable probability
that, had the evidence been disclosed to the defense, the result of
the proceeding would have been different.'" DeCiantis III, 24 A.3d
at 571, 573 (quoting Chalk, 816 A.2d at 419) (emphasis omitted).
It
noted
that
the
Superior
Court,
-14-
in
denying
DeCiantis's
Id. at 568-69
or
proceeding."
would
have
changed
the
ultimate
result
of
the
the
correct
standard.
The
court
also
twice
stated
that
the
court's
one-time
use
of
an
28
U.S.C. 2254(d)(1).
B.
habeas court may grant the writ if the state court identifies the
correct governing legal principle from this Court's decisions but
unreasonably applies that principle to the facts of the prisoner's
case."
"[A]
federal habeas court may not issue the writ simply because that
court concludes in its independent judgment that the relevant
state-court
decision
applied
erroneously or incorrectly.
unreasonable."7
clearly
established
federal
law
Id. at 411.
"Ferle
was
confronted
with
his
prior
conviction
of
Id.
incentives in cross-examination.
Even if we assume this evidence would have induced the jury to view
Ferle differently, there was still the testimony of the other
witnesses at trial, who overwhelmingly pegged DeCiantis, through
his own statements and other evidence, for Roche's murder.
IV.
The judgment of the district court is affirmed.
ordered.
-18-
So